Donald Trump has attacked many American cities. But as president, he will have direct control over only one thing: his former and future home of Washington, D.C., where city leaders are bracing for his wrath and hoping for the best.
Trump’s first term was treated as an unwelcome nuisance in the capital, where more than nine in 10 voters rejected Trump in the election every time he ran for office and protested against him and his officials almost continuously.
But ahead of Trump’s return to the White House, District of Columbia officials fear they will lose their tenuous grip on the limited self-government they have struggled to achieve in recent decades since Trump repeatedly vowed to protect a city he describes as ‘taking over’ a ‘dirty and filthy city’. crime-ridden disgrace to our nation.”
Although Washington officials not long ago hoped for full statehood, now they simply want to preserve their ability to choose their own leaders.
“A second Trump presidency poses risks for DC, which lacks state protections and full home rule,” Del said. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district’s longtime representative in Congress, which has limited voting power, told NBC News. “I will continue to defend DC’s home rule against any attacks that come our way.”
There will be little to stop Trump if he makes good on his threat to federalize the capital. Constitutionally, the District of Columbia is a department of the federal government. Limited self-government is derived from Congress and can be revoked whenever the President and Congress wish.
For example, with the stroke of a pen, Trump could take over the DC National Guard and even the Metropolitan Police Department, the city’s local municipal police force, at least for a while. And he could deploy more federal law enforcement, as he did during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.
A Republican-controlled Congress can override regulations passed by the county’s elected Council and impose its own rules, such as possible restrictions on abortion. And together, Trump and Congress could strip away the district’s local autonomy or reinstate something like the Financial Control Board, which oversaw the city’s spending in the 1990s.
“We have spent months discussing and planning in case the District needs to defend itself and its values,” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said at a news conference the week after Trump’s election.
The mayor also served during Trump’s first term and clashed with him repeatedly, culminating in her having “Black Lives Matter” emblazoned in giant yellow letters on a plaza near the White House, which became a magnet for racial justice protests that Trump quashed. federal law enforcement agents.
However, during her post-election press conference this year, Bowser struck a noticeably more conciliatory tone.
Speaking on behalf of the city, Bowser said she “congratulated President-elect Trump and his team on their victory,” adding that “Washington DC stands ready to welcome the new administration.” She highlighted places where the city and Trump can find common ground and work together.
“We know we can work with the Trump administration,” she said.
Bowser and Trump have some common interests, such as bringing more federal workers back to the office, a Trump priority that would also help downtown businesses that have been struggling since the Covid pandemic hit the city’s tax base harmed.
Trump has also often spoken of a desire to revitalize federal buildings and the city’s vast land holdings, including many neighborhood parks, potentially creating jobs and boosting tourism. He also wants to keep the FBI headquarters in downtown DC, rather than moving it to the suburbs.
But there is much more that separates them than unites them.
Trump has said he wants to “take over” the city — “I wouldn’t even call the mayor,” he mused in a speech last year — and said, “A key part of my platform for president is to bring back and restore the city. , and rebuild Washington, DC”
Project 2025 calls on Congress to use its authority over the District to demand it issue more private school vouchers, override the District’s law allowing physician-assisted suicide and move federal agencies out of Washington, which Trump tried to do during his first term. .
“President Trump was reelected by a resounding mandate from the American people to change the status quo in Washington,” Karoline Leavitt, a Trump transition spokeswoman who has been tapped to serve as White House press secretary, said when asked asked about his plans for the capital. “That’s why he has chosen brilliant and highly respected outsiders to serve in his administration, and he will continue to stand with them as they battle all those who try to derail the MAGA agenda.”
Republicans in Congress have long used so-called riders involved in spending bills to micro-manage D.C., such as one that prevented the city from implementing a legal marijuana market after voters rejected the idea more than a decade ago had approved a referendum.
Now reproductive rights groups worry that the Republican trifecta could target abortion rights in the city because the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision would no longer protect them.
And they could go even further if they wanted to.
Washington has only had its own government elected by residents since the 1970s with the passage of the DC Home Rule Act, but that could be repealed by a similar act of Congress.
“The district has its own government, and Congress could change this. They could. That is possible,” Bowser said at her press conference.
In 1995, as the city grappled with the crack epidemic and after a wave of elections that gave Republicans control of the House of Representatives for the first time in decades, Democratic President Bill Clinton signed a law establishing a federal city supervisory board. The District of Columbia’s five-member Financial Control Board had the day-to-day power to override decisions made by the DC Council and the mayor and oversee how the money it collected through taxes from its residents was spent issued.
The Oversight Board only resigned in 2001, after the city balanced four consecutive budgets, and city leaders now worry that Trump and Republicans in Congress could use crime or other issues as an argument for creating a similar Oversight Board. install.
But Norton is most concerned about the city’s police force, which the president can federalize under the Home Rule Act for up to 30 days in the event of an emergency. Congress can then pass a resolution to extend the president’s period of control.
“During his first term as president, Trump considered federalizing the D.C. police force for his own purposes,” said Norton, who has repeatedly introduced bills to try to change the law to keep local police local. “DC Police’s first priority and responsibility must be to the residents of the District.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
